Noble House
1987 paperback edition
Author	James Clavell
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Asian Saga
Genre(s)	Historical novel
Publisher	Delacorte Press
Publication date	April 1981
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
ISBN	ISBN 0-385-28737-2 (first edition, hardback)
Preceded by	King Rat
Followed by	Whirlwind

Noble House is a novel by James Clavell, published in 1981 and set in Hong Kong in 1963. A novel (from Italian novella, Spanish novela, French nouvelle for "new" "news" or "short story James Clavell, born Charles Edmund Dumaresq Clavell ( 10 October, 1924 – 7 September, 1994) was a British (later Year 1981 ( MCMLXXXI) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link displays the 1981 Hong Kong ( officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a territory located on China 's south coast on the Pearl River Delta, and borders Year 1963 ( MCMLXIII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. It is part of Clavell's Asian Saga. The Asian Saga is a series of six novels written by James Clavell between 1962 and 1993.

It is a massive book, well over 1000 pages, with dozens of characters and numerous intermingling plot lines. In 1988, it was adapted as a television miniseries for NBC starring Pierce Brosnan. Year 1988 ( MCMLXXXVIII) was a Leap year starting on Friday (link displays 1988 Gregorian calendar) Noble House was an American television Miniseries that was produced and broadcast by NBC in 1988 The National Broadcasting Company ( NBC) is an American Television network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Pierce Brendan Brosnan, OBE Honour and so holds an honorary OBE The miniseries updates the storyline of the novel to the 1980s.

The Noble House also is a nickname of Struan's, the trading company featured prominently in most of Clavell's novels. The Struan family and company (also called the Noble House in Clavell's Novels is a fictional family featuring heavily in many of the Asian Saga novels

Plot summary

Noble House is set in 1963. Year 1963 ( MCMLXIII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The tai-pan, Ian Dunross, struggles to rescue Struan's from the precarious financial position left over from his predecessor. A tai-pan ( Chinese 大班 was an influential foreign businessman doing business in China or Hong Kong in the 19th century Ian Dunross is a fictional character in James Clavell 's Novel Noble House, and a minor protagonist behind the scenes in Whirlwind To do this, he seeks partnership with an American millionaire, while trying to ward off his arch-rival Quillan Gornt, who seeks to destroy Struan's once and for all. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Meanwhile, Chinese communists, Taiwanese nationalists, and Soviet spies illegally vie for influence in Hong Kong while the British government seeks to prevent this. The Communist Party of China ( CPC) ( also known as the Chinese Communist Party ( CCP) is the founding and ruling political party of the KGB ( Transliteration of "КГБ" is the Russian abbreviation of Committee for State Security ( Komityet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosty Her Majesty's Government, or when the monarch is male His Majesty's Government, is the title used by the Government of the United Kingdom, based at And nobody, it seems, can get anything done without enlisting the aid of Hong Kong's criminal underworld. In the sociological field, crime is the breach of a rule or Law for which some governing authority or force may ultimately prescribe a Punishment Other obstacles include water shortages, landslides, bank runs and stock market crashes. A landslide is a geological phenomenon which includes a wide range of ground movement such as rock falls deep failure of slopes and shallow debris flows which can occur A bank run (also known as a run on the bank) occurs when a large number of Bank customers withdraw their deposits because they believe the bank is or might A stock market crash is a sudden dramatic decline of Stock prices across a significant cross-section of a Stock market.

In Noble House, Dunross finds his company the target of a hostile takeover at a time when Struan's is desperately overextended. He is also embroiled in international espionage when he finds himself in possession of secret documents desperately desired by both the KGB and MI6. KGB ( Transliteration of "КГБ" is the Russian abbreviation of Committee for State Security ( Komityet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosty The Secret Intelligence Service ( SIS) colloquially known as MI6 is the United Kingdom 's external Intelligence agency. The novel follows Dunross' attempts to extricate himself from all this and to save Struan's, the Noble House.

Struan and Company is based on Jardine Matheson which continues to exist to this day as an Asia based trading company. Jardine Matheson Holdings Limited (,) often called Jardines or Jardine's (怡和 is a Multinational corporation that is incorporated in The chief character, Ian Dunross, is believed to be a composite character of two real life Jardine-Matheson tai-pans, Sir Hugh David MacEwen Barton and Sir Michael Herries. Sir Hugh David MacEwen Barton (born January 17 1911 in Ireland) is a former Chairman and Managing Director of Jardine Matheson & Co Sir Michael Alexander Robert Young-Herries (28 February 1923 &ndash 6 May 1995 was the Chairman and Managing Director of Jardine Matheson & Co.

Unlike the other Asian Saga novels, Noble House is not closely based on a specific series of events, but is more a snapshot of the 1960s in Hong Kong, and serves as a capsule history of Jardines in the 1960s,[1] against the backdrop of the impending Vietnam War, under the spectre of the recent Kim Philby defection. 1960s in Hong Kong continued with the development and expansion of manufacturing that began in the previous decade The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, or the Vietnam Conflict, occurred in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby or HAR Philby ( OBE: 1946-1965 ( 1 January, 1912 – 11 May, 1988) The story opens on Sunday August 18, 1963, and runs for a week span. Events 293 BC - The oldest known Roman temple to Venus is founded starting the institution of Vinalia Rustica. Some events do mirror actual events, but not the timelines. In 1961 Jardine Matheson became a public company, with the initial offer oversubscribed by some 56 times, which is attributed in the novel to tai-pan Ian Dunross. A public company usually refers to a company that is permitted to offer its registered securities ( Stock, bonds, etc In 1963 the Hongkong Land subsidiary of Jardine (fictionalized as Asian Properties) opened what was then the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, which has today become one of the world's leading hotels. The Hongkong Land Company Limited (branded as Hongkong Land, 置地公司 in Chinese) is the Property development arm of Jardines. The Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group (MOHG is a hotel management company which is part of Jardine Matheson Holdings Limited and is formally known as Mandarin Oriental The Dairy Farm subsidiary of Jardine moved into the supermarket sector in 1964 with the acquisition of Wellcome (fictionalized as H. Customer divider barjpg|thumb|In supermarkets sellers periodically change prices for classes of goods in response to market conditions rather than negotiating the price of each good Wellcome ( in Hong Kong; 頂好 in Taiwan) is a Supermarket chain owned by Jardine Matheson Holdings via its Dairy Farm subsidiary K. General Stores), the big supermarket deal clearly paralleled in the book. A Jardine representative office was established in Australia in 1963, fictionalized as the next assignment of Linbar Struan. The big set-pieces-the fire on the boat and the landslip, are also closely modeled on real happenings.

A major difference between the original novel and the later miniseries adaptation is the television version changes the setting from 1963 to the late 1980s, and updates visible technology accordingly.

Main characters

• Ian Dunross - Tenth tai-pan of Struan's, who rose to that office in 1960 and took the company public. Prior to this, he was a lifelong Struan's employee, a son and grandson of previous tai-pans. During World War II, Struan served as a fighter pilot until being grounded after being shot down. World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including Dunross finds his company the target of a hostile takeover from his arch-rival Quillan Gornt at a time when it is desperately overextended. He is also embroiled in international espionage when he finds himself in possession of secret documents desperately desired by both the KGB and MI6. KGB ( Transliteration of "КГБ" is the Russian abbreviation of Committee for State Security ( Komityet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosty The Secret Intelligence Service ( SIS) colloquially known as MI6 is the United Kingdom 's external Intelligence agency. Though one of many characters in the novel, Dunross is the only one involved with all the main plot lines. In the 1988 NBC miniseries Noble House, Dunross was portrayed by Pierce Brosnan. Year 1988 ( MCMLXXXVIII) was a Leap year starting on Friday (link displays 1988 Gregorian calendar) The National Broadcasting Company ( NBC) is an American Television network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's A miniseries (also mini-series) in a serial Storytelling medium is a production which tells a story in a pre-planned limited number of episodes Pierce Brendan Brosnan, OBE Honour and so holds an honorary OBE
• Quillan Gornt - Gornt is the tai-pan of Rothwell-Gornt, a major Hong Kong trading company. As a descendant of Tyler Brock, he is the blood enemy of Ian Dunross and the entire Struan's company, which Gornt seeks to destroy. Tyler Brock ( 1787 - 1863 ? is a fictional character in the James Clavell novel ''Tai-Pan''. Gornt schemes to persuade millionaire Lincoln Bartlett to partner with him, rather than with Dunross. He uses whatever devious and underhanded means available to accomplish this, while trying his best to seduce Bartlett's partner and vice-president Casey Tcholok.
• Lincoln Bartlett - American millionaire, head of Par-Con Industries. He is a devotee on Sun Tzu and views business as a kind of war. Sun Tzu ( ("Master Sun" also called Sun Wu ( is traditionally considered to be the author of The Art of War (also simply called the He believes in corporate espionage and misleading his partners as he vies for advantage. But he is an honest businessman according to the rules that he accepts, and he does not engage in illegal activities. He is in love with his Executive Vice President, Casey Tcholok.
• Casey Tcholok - Kamalian Ciranoush (K. C. ) Tcholok, vice-President of Par-Con Industries. Casey is charged with putting together a partnership deal with Struan's, a deal which is critical to save Struan's from ruin. In the meantime, Bartlett is exploring doing the deal with Struan's rival Quillan Gornt. Casey finds herself being drawn to both Gornt and Struan's tai-pan Ian Dunross, while watching with dread as Bartlett falls in love with Gornt's protege Orlanda Ramos.
• Robert Armstrong - Armstrong serves as a police inspector in Hong Kong. Because of his skill and intelligence, he was promoted to Special Intelligence, a branch concerned with counter-espionage.
• Phillip Chen - He is a director and fourth compradore of Struan's, and a descendant of the company's founder, Dirk Struan. Dirk Lochlin Struan is the fictional main character of James Clavell 's Novel Tai-Pan. His full name is Phillip T'Chung Sheng Chen.
• Roger Crosse - Senior superintendent, director of Special Intelligence, meaning he is the senior British intelligence officer in Hong Kong.
• Brian Kwok - Hong Kong police Superintendent, working in Special Intelligence. He is being groomed to be the first ever Chinese assistant police commissioner. He was sent to Hong Kong from mainland China at age 6, won a scholarship to an English public school at age 12, two years later in 1939 moved to Canada because of the war. An independent school in the United Kingdom is a school relying upon private sources for all of its funding predominantly in the form of school fees He served in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in the Vancouver Chinatown, before transferring to Hong Kong. Vancouver (vænˈkuːvɚ is a coastal A Chinatown is a section of an urban area with a large number of Chinese outside the majority-Chinese countries of Greater China.
• Four Finger Wu - Sang Fang Wu is the head of the seaborne Wu, a large smuggling fleet. He boasts his fleet will smuggle anything, anywhere. This includes narcotic smuggling. The term narcotic (ναρκωτικός is believed to have been coined by the Greek physician Galen to refer to agents that benumb or deaden causing loss He has Old Friend status with Struan's, indicating that the two families have had a long working relationship and have built up a great deal of trust. Ian Dunross, the current tai-pan of Struan's, continues to cultivate this relationship, though he encourages Wu to avoid narcotics trafficking as being too dangerous.
• Paul "Profitable" Choy is the son of Four Finger Wu, publicly known as his nephew. Noble House is a Novel by James Clavell, published in 1981 and set in Hong Kong in 1963. Unlike his father, he was educated in America, eventually receiving a Harvard MBA. His nickname Profitable comes from his skill at effecting tremendous business coups and creating huge wealth. Following the death of his father, Profitable took and redeemed Jin-Qua's half-coin to establish a Chinese stock exchange in Hong Kong with the aid of Ian Dunross. By the time of Whirlwind, he has become the richest and most powerful Chinese businessman in Hong Kong. Whirlwind is a novel by James Clavell, first published in 1986.

References